Rep. Harris: Proud to Support “Largest Tax Cut in American History”

WASHINGTON, DC: On November 16, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This legislation is the first major reform to the federal tax code since 1986. Congressman Andy Harris (MD-01) voted in favor of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and released the following statement in support of its passage:

“I am proud to support the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by the House today. It will stimulate our nation’s economy, create jobs, and put more money into the pockets of hardworking Americans. It will be the largest tax cut in American history. As this legislation progresses through the Senate, I will continue to work with the House Ways & Means Committee Chairman, Kevin Brady, to address the state and local tax deductions that are important to Marylanders.”

Maryland keeps electing lefties who want big government programs then we should have to pay for what we want. The elimination of the SALT deduction shifts the tax burden to those who choose to want more socialist policies. In the immortal words of President Obama, they need to pay their fare share…

Yea I’m curious to see how many Trump supporters will be cool with a tax increase with the “biggest tax cut in history”. This will not make taxes in Maryland Great Again… But hey if you don’t make much, don’t itemize, and don’t pay much anyway then enjoy your tax cut.

But if you’re a homeowner who itemizes and is upper middle class and already paying out your backside, then get ready for more…

Finally someone with a brain – thanks Pay for your choices. That is exactly the issue here. This is why NY, NJ, CT, IL, CA and OR are kicking and screaming. They are also the states that give away more cookies to people who refuse to work than any other states. High state taxes are directly linked to the votes cast within that state over time – the residents chose all those programs that required tax funding!!

This reality will do nothing to wake up the left – they want, want, want the government to take care of every aspect of their lives – and that requires a boat-load of funding. Now we can sit back and watch the migration of Americans as they seek more reasonable places to live…

The answer to your question is this – he would support this bill, because he has pledged his blind allegiance to Trump, and will do whatever Trump wants him to do. Creepy really. He’s desperately hoping to be noticed by Trump, and that won’t ever happen.

The logic then is that we should be able to deduct our local and state taxes from our federal tax. Translated that means that someone in rural Texas who pays no state or local taxes has a larger federal tax bill than someone in Maryland who has exactly the same income, etc. I fail to see the fairness in that.

In Texas, sales tax is up to a max of 8.25% but usually 6.25% and you can deduct it off your federal income if you itemize. Daddy dumb@zz either doesn’t quite grasp the math or has no idea about taxes.

There is a cap on how much can be claimed – it is now $10000 that can be deducted which will in fact help most Americans. There are also a few simplifications in the code that will make filing easier as most will choose not to itemize their taxes.

The tax code hasn’t been touched in the US since 1986 – it was long overdue to make changes. To many of us the changes didn’t go far enough, but some simplification, closing some loopholes, adjusting the brackets was long overdue.

In the end, the sky isn’t going to fall here. The code we’ve been living under has been horrendous. Life for most will not change a bit. Many will get a little more in the wallet and some, particularly in high tax states, could end up paying a little more.

This bill is also terrible for seniors. Taxpayers will no longer be able to deduct medical expenses under the legislation.

There is no way that Harris can possibly defend that. Many seniors rely on the medical expense deduction to offset the high cost of living in senior housing or nursing homes.

How anyone can support eliminating the tax deduction for medical expenses is beyond comprehension. Do they want seniors to become homeless and thrown out on the street? These include veterans, including veterans of the World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War generation.

Thank you for writing this. We are in the same situation and have contacted many congress members about this, but nothing has happened yet. Doesn’t seem like those voting for the tax plan understand this aspect.

How was 8 years with almost no growth in your retirement, pension or 401K? That’s what we’re coming off of and it has been horrible for 100% of this country. As for taxes, did you really think the former tax scheme was just fine? If so, you are in a very small minority of citizens.

Wow Cdev – that’s extraordinary. I know you’ve been on this site for years so I’m assuming you’ve been working for a good number of years. $50K in 8 years. So unless you started with $100K, that is abysmal, just like mine, and everyone I know. Pensions and retirement plans have been stagnant for a decade…until last November – and that is nationally.

As for the deficit spending – seems to me that the jury is out on that just like most new laws. I have read about estimates as high as $1.4 trillion – but who really knows the exact number. Please remind me – how much did Obamacare end up costing?? Who cared about that one when it was ram-rodded down our throat?

Are you suggesting that YOU are a TEA Party folk? I’ve seen your posts for quite a while – Tea Party would not have been in my top 100 guesses.

50k really does suck especially figuring in the great republican recession of 2008 where you probably lost 25k. My advice is cash out if you can, deficit spending is always reduced under Democrat Presidents and explodes under Republicans. You could be a poster boy for the middle class, you think you have a bundle in the market but the reality is your 50k over 8 years is chump change to the guys who just got tax deductions for getting their jets detailed.

On top of that we have clueless idiots like fedup who clearly has nothing in the market or saved for retirement but is damn glad to have a job waxing jets business is looking up.I’ll get him out of the basement where he still researching OBamas birth cert and a pedo ring in a pizza parlor.

The Obama years were great for investing in stocks!!!!! What the hell BS are you spouting about no growth in your retirement account? Do you have your money in a savings account? Actually I was over 4x my money overall from early 2009 to nov 2016 ( doubled up twice plus). You must suck at investing in stocks. Hire a good broker who knows something. Citi group C alone was 8x my money went from under 10 to over 50. Hell if bought it when bottomed after Bush recession, timed it right with some big ones you could have made 30X maybe close 50X your money.

Your vote succeeded in raising my taxes while you gave a massive tax reduction to those in the top income brackets. I’m sure your rich financial donors are delighted with your actions; for myself, I am disgusted with you. I am looking forward to voting for your opponent.

Maybe we will realize how much we pay in SALT once we have to pay our full tax bill. Maybe we should get angry at a state that gives $12,000 per student to Baltimore City and only $6,000 per student to Harford County. Your state government screws you over in order to placate the democratic voting machine that is Baltimore City. Maybe we shouldn’t depend so much on our state and federal government.

Dear Harford County Constitutionist,
Quit trying to change the subject to suit your warped political agenda.
Your tax burden will probably go up, but you’re to stupid to realize it. Like most trump supporters, you are a deplorable moron.

Dear Local Yocal,
I know my tax burden will go up and I am more that willing to pay it. I’m not trying to change the subject, I want people to understand how their taxes are being spent. Do you think it is appropriate that a student in Baltimore City gets twice as much funding from the state as your local child? I personally don’t. Thanks for the name calling it truly shows the intellectual deficiency of your argument. If trying to eliminate big government and have more local control is a warped political agenda, then sign me up.

You are all arguing a tax code that is imaginary. Maryland has forfeit its powers and authorities to govern, as they have stolen virtually every right guaranteed to the citizens by the Constitution. Hell, Maryland doesn’t even follow it’s own Constitution, so the taxation is doubly illegal. The Constitution is a covenant between the government and the people and the government has violated its part in full. The fact that there is absolutely no way that the Federal government isn’t aware of these issues, makes the Federal taxation equally NULL and VOID. You are ALL talking about money that is extorted from you by a lawless government that has become Mafia. You owe no allegiance to this government because it is not a government. It is a mafia. You owe no tax to a mafia. You owe no fealty to a mafia. Your money is used to fund an illegal entity that has no right to exist and no rules or regulations of a corporate mafiosa are to be adhered.

• The plan includes weakening and then eliminating the federal estate tax, paid only by the wealthiest households on estates worth over $5.5 million for individuals and $11 million for couples.
• It eliminates the alternative minimum tax, which exclusively benefits households with incomes over $200,000.
• It drops corporate tax rates to 20%, the overwhelming benefit of which goes to the very wealthy and—contrary to what the president might say—will not create jobs.
• It lowers wealthy tax rate by 4% costing us $9,727 billion annually which the middleclass must make up.
• The tax plan includes eliminating tax deductions that benefit many middle-class Americans eliminating state and local tax deduction and student loan interest, among others.
• The tax plan includes adding $1.5 trillion over 10 years to the national debt, or $150 billion a year.

Thanks for posting talking points…
-Estate tax…so things that have already have had taxes paid on them once should be taxed again when inherited?
-AMT…not true. This is not an exclusive benefit.
-How would corporations having a lower tax rate not create jobs or increase pay to employees? If you operated a large corporation, would you go to the country with at 38% corporate tax rate or a 20% tax rate?
-Lowers the wealthy tax rate by 4%…so what? They still pay a much higher PERCENTAGE than any other class. Also, you realize that “$9,727 billion annually” us actually $9.727 trillion? The TOTAL ESTIMATED FY 18 revenue is $6.7 trillion!!!! Check your numbers!!!
-State and local tax deductions are a ploy by high tax states (namely leftist states) to lessen the pain of their high tax policies on their constituents by subsidizing through federal tax deductions (i.e., making the rest of the country pay for it).
-Your figure of adding to the debt is a complete fallacy. Time and time again–check tax revenue tables from times in history where there are tax cuts–tax revenue INCREASES when there are tax cuts due to growth.

Just because you believe something doesn’t make it fact. Of course, most Trumpanzees ReCONjobs make up their own facts anyway, so I guess you can believe fiction is truth in the political fantasy of your mind. Just don’t expect free thinkers to buy in to the BS.

First that’s not how estate tax works at all but it is what fox news wants you too believe. It’s extremely easy to avoid estate taxes but what the new tax law allows you to do is hoard cash while avoiding the tax which is very bad for the economy but they didn’t tell you that did they.

And for creating jobs… Seriously? They have plenty of cash now why would a tax break giving them more cash suddenly make them want to hire? Think the Waldens will wake up one morning and go… damn you know I just have too much cash I think now I’ll hire some people to do something….

Lefty Myth #1: If someone else has money it is the reason you are poor. The economy is not a zero sum game, if someone else is rich it is not causing you to be less well off.

Lefty Myth #2: All tax cuts only benefit wealthy corporations. Yes they do, but they also benefit smaller corporations and they are the lifeblood of our economy. Those small businesses are the reason that america is successful, and we need to make it easier for them. They cannot lobby for the protections that our political class sell to large corporations.

This year the federal government is going to get 3.654 trillion dollars. We do not have a problem with how much the federal government gets, we have a problem with how much it spends. Let’s tackle entitlements first. Lets phase out medicare and social security for those that are well off, but this insanity that we only need to pay more has got to stop.

I’ve been off this site for a few years…I’ve made a few comments to a few stories and comments on this site in the past few days….now, looking at Lefty’s comment and a few others that choose to pivot to F bombs instantly, I’m signing off forever.

I’m posting to this disgusted comment because I truly am Fed up with the way people are behaving in this country. There is no dialog and many don’t even have a clue how to disagree on a point, debate it, weigh different opinions and move on, possibly better enlightened but definitely appreciating that there are always more than one point of view.

To those of you who jump into name calling and dropping the bomb, I hope you’ll figure out how to talk to others like adults. Nobody on this page has ever physically threatened anyone so that response is just pathetic.

I truly wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year. Think a little deeper and be a little nicer to folks in 2018. With my departure there will be another “FedUp” posting on The Dagger, but it definitely will not be me.

In order for a corporate tax rate decrease be considered as a tool to create new jobs, it should have made mandatory to use funds gained by this decrease for job creation. This was NOT done and if we have learned anything about giving corporations monetary breaks it should be that corporations will give their CEO’s and other corporate higher ups a large portion of that money. Look at the bail outs we gave the banking, insurance and automotive industries. Each of those industries gave a lot of that bail out money to those whom it was NOT meant to benefit. I agree that raising salaries is a good thing, but how will we ever bring manufacturing back to America if corporations can not afford to make goods here because of high salaries. The answer is robotic automation, yet that automation will end up removing jobs from the economy, not creating them. We need to learn to manufacture from the resources we have while providing a salary that is just. We need to decrease inflation and get the price of food and goods into a realm of reasonableness, without relying on foreign manufacturing. America was at its height when most goods being purchased in America had a “MADE IN USA” stamp on them. This is the truth and we all know it.

…….and companies took pride in claiming their products were made to last which now has given way to consumers who demand immediate gratification and lose interest in anything once the “newness” wears off = cheap products that don’t last made by the cheapest means possible. This has led to the consolidation of products for retail sale under fewer but larger companies. Add in the death of so called “net neutrality”, and we get the final nail in the coffin of small retail businesses which will accelerate the shift in the same direction. People who buy cheap stuff made cheaply don’t need higher wages to support their lifestyle especially when credit companies often affiliated with the big retailers will give them credit so easily in order to satisfy those consumption needs. A feedback loop going the wrong direction if you work for a living and still believe in the idea that if you work hard and live right, you will be able to better your economic situation. Not in a country where the playing field gets tilted more and more in favor of the elite few.

Andy really is a political embarrassment. He ran on a platform of the freedom caucus but now is all for adding trillions to the national debt while giving people he promised no tax increases a tax increase. That along with his screwing over the citizens of DC who can’t even vote for him by delaying marijuana legalization for no other reason than he could. Then add on his cutting edge legislation of hinee wipes in the sewer system of the nations capitol. Come on Republicans we can do much better than this.

Why don’t you just come out and confess it like your fellow Representative Chris Collins did and admit you had to do this or your donors were going to cut you off. There is no other excuse for this reverse Robin Hood legislation.

Maybe doc Andy needs to do a more thourough exam of the bill and realize it is bad for Maryland and his constitutes. Then write a prescription for making sure everything $$ that MD sends to Washington comes back and not supporting other states.

Maryland and Virginia get more dollars than they pay in taxes. You have to count all the contracting and employer dollars as well as any social spending. When people do the calculations they always leave out the federal jobs that state has.

I would assume that since Miss. was high due to the large non – retirement benefits, due to a larger poor population. Only Rhode Island and Florida were higher. Texas did not get more back than they paid, actually they got substantially less back even though there are quite a few large military bases in Texas.

That statement is false, the red states budget provided by the federal government is a higher percentage. This is due to red states usually spending less. Overall per capita blue states get considerably more.

Against a national average of $1,935 in intergovernmental spending per American, red states receive just $1,879. Blue states get considerably more, at $2,124 per resident. Purple states see the least of their money returned to them per capita, at just $1,770. Measured in this way, the blue states are getting quite a bit more than the red or purple.

Even within that limited range of figures, the results are not the open-and-shut case that critics from the Left would have us believe. For one thing: no state receives more in intergovernmental transfers than its citizens and corporations pay in federal taxes. The state that gets the most back in intergovernmental transfers is a blue state, New Mexico, at 80.27 percent. Red states West Virginia and Mississippi are the only other two that get back more than half of their taxes in this form of spending (67.30 percent and 63.12 percent, respectively).

This is exactly the kind of biased study that the federalist article is debunking. Why did they only count half the dollars from federal jobs? Why did they use percentage of annual revenue instead of actual dollars? Here is the verbiage about their methodology:
They compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia on three metrics: 1) federal spending per capita compared with every dollar paid in federal income taxes; 2) the percentage of a state’s annual revenue that comes from federal funding; and 3) the number of federal employees per capita. The third measure received only half the weight of each of the others in the calculation.

You, madam, are absolutely wrong. “We” are NOT honored to “have this statesman in office”. He is a money-hungry, coattail-grabbing, self-serving hypocrite, who does not care one iota about his constituency. He looked me in my face and lied to me and my disabled son, telling me that he would fight to keep his healthy insurance. He refuses to listen to his constituents by holding an open town hall meeting anywhere near Harford County. He simply rubber stamps everything that Trump advocates. He is a disgrace, and worse, he is dishonest and corrupt. We will surely vote him out.

He supported Chesapeake Bay cleanup. He advocated for funding to address our security concerns. He fought for tax relief. He championed our veterans. He is accessible and everywhere. Only a wicked partisan would disagree with the obvious.

Dirty City thank you. I need the context of the argument. I completely agree that the tax cuts should be permanent for everyone and not expire on individual tax payers in 10 years. I couldn’t read the entire post article(subscription issues), but I found a similar one on Mother Jones. It seems the JCT took the course that if the ocare mandate was removed then they wouldn’t buy insurance. Hence losing that tax write off. Maybe we should go with the house’s version that doesn’t have tax cut sunsets, that is the one that Harris voted on.

I didn’t need the math done for me, but I need to know exactly what you were talking about so I asked a clarifying question. Our representative did not vote for the senate bill, because he is not a senator. So your sarcastic thank you does not work, he voted for a different bill than the report you referenced is referring to.

The bottom line is that in Congressman Harris, we have a soldier in the fight for meaningful tax relief. He is leading the way. He plows his sword through the regulations and taxes that hold families back. We should be grateful for this man, stampeding his horse through the fields of decay that the Liberals sowed.

That is kind of my point, I bet that South Carolina would be a democratic strong hold if they had as many federal jobs as Maryland or Virginia. People tend to vote in their self interest. My point has been and will always be that a small federal government is the best way to govern. We see daily stories breaking with our elected officials on trial for medicare fraud, secret meeting with Russians, approving the sale of uranium companies,.. The list goes on and on. This is not because one side is better than the other, it is because power leads to corruption, and we are becoming one of the most corrupt countries around. The only way to stop this is to reduce the power and influence the federal government has.

West Virginians have a very strong belief in the second amendment, it is still an open carry state. So anybody running for office has to oppose gun regs, hence the most centrist democrat senator comes from WV, Joe Manchin

Day after day I see Republican bashing on this thread and in the media. I and my whole family were from East Baltimore. In the 50s and 60s everyone in that area were Democrats. Hard working people that wanted nothing more than a fair shake. They didn’t want hand outs or free stuff. They just wanted the opportunity to succeed to benefit their families. Not a bad concept. A lot of Democrats still embrace those feelings. However, modern day Democrats are much different. They are people that expect handouts and never plan to repay the givers. They feel that they are entitled. The Democratic Party has evolved in to a party that will embrace any liberal cause or free loader that wants to support ang give them voter strength. They will reward underachievers and blindly support them. It is kind of funny but Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat. He was quoted as saying “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party it left me”. Then Kennedy would say “ask it what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country” yea right! Do the fact checking and see which party has the most criminals by percentage. Just saying

Your problem is you see the world as a binary choice between R or D. If someone points out the BS from the R’s, your reaction is to attack the D’s. You just don’t get it do you? Two wrongs don’t make either of them right. Your political bias makes you a part of the problem in this country. People used to work together to resolve issues by compromising. Your attitude demonstrates why we can’t resolve basic issues anymore. By the way tell us which data base would provide the political party affiliation of all known convicted criminals.

Well before the days of Trump and before the Republican Party itself went batshit nuts, day after day I would see Democrats, liberals, public employees and other such groups bashed on this site. Those were the good old days of the Lagmeister, Phil Dirt and Alex R. Those were also the good old days of clear cut moral values and fiscally responsible policies that a conservative could rally behind and use as a political hammer to strike down the policies of the left. Now, it gets beyond pretty hard to support disgusting, fiscally irresponsible and just plain insane actions and policies day after day coming from the very Republican Party that I championed every day on this site. Food for thought. I fear those days are gone forever as is the Republican Party I once supported.

A brief description of what’s in store after the tax plan: Tax increase on small business and the middle class results in economic slow down and recession.Republicans scream for another tax decrease and reductions in federal government starting a downward death spiral.

Remember today because if you think things are economically bad now you ain’t seen nothing yet we are officially on the path to self destruction.

History has shown that deep tax cuts produce more revenue for the government with little debt. I suggest you view President Reagan’s record and the vigorous economic improvements in blood-red states like Kansas. We need that in Harford, deep tax cuts.

It took me all of 5 minutes to do a little bit of research to see that plan put in place in Kansas was such a disaster that the Republican majority legislature passed tax INCREASES in order to fix the situation. They had some of the most underfunded public schools in the nation and their state economy is a mess.

Taxed Enough Already(TEA) party members are not going to argue with getting less on their money taken. Hopefully the Republicans can grow a pair and cut some spending, unlikely but possible. Trying to blame the tea party for massive government spending is kind of like giving illegal immigrants the credit for our economy.

If the TEA Party is a legitimate political party aimed at a smaller government and constitutional reform of the government, then why are they concerned about paying a tax at all. Everyone, including the TEA Party, has got to recognize that our government has illegally crossed the powers and authorities granted to them by the people in exchange for our rights. This is a COVENANT and it has been violated in full by the non law abiding government that has turned the land of the free and the home of the brave into the land of the unfree and the home of the enslaved. One of the powers that has been granted to this government was taxation. Until the government corrects its illegal path of legalized crime and terrorism against the people it is supposed to serve, taxation is NULL and VOID. You don’t owe a tax to a false government, you owe them disdain and contempt. Let me remind you that our government declared war against the American people and never rescinded that declaration of war against us. This war is the “war on drugs” and was never a war against drugs, it is a war against the American people. This declaration of war is actually an act of treason against the US Constitution and the American people and there was never any grant of authority to control our actions and behaviors that were not engrained into common law. The treason is undeniable because the government declared war on us. Furthermore, the state of Maryland was never supposed to make any law that would attaint treason or felony unto any of its citizens after the date from which the current Constitution took effect. That was in 1867. One has to wonder how many laws has the Maryland government made since 1867 that DO attaint felony unto it’s people whom it is supposed to serve? This is unacceptable and intolerable. It is a complete act of treason against the people and the Maryland government has proven itself incompetent and untrustworthy to govern the people it has oppressed. We don’t owe tax. We owe them disdain and contempt because that is all a treasonous government is really entitled to…….

No, when the government makes law they have no power to do, they become oppressive. When the government declares war on its own people, that government has become treasonous. If any part of government had any actual power or authority to regulate any kind of drug, it would have been the states, not the Federal government. In Maryland, we were guaranteed that no law to attaint treason or felony would be made against its citizens after 1867. That promised has been betrayed as well. If I am wrong, please state the power and authority listed in the US Constitution that WE THE PEOPLE allowed the Federal government to regulate us in this manner. You can’t. It doesn’t exist. The states could and should regulate drug use. Yet in Maryland, it shouldn’t be and the legislature and the judiciary had a duty to make sure it wasn’t. They failed, intentionally.

Democrats and Math don’t do well together either, all they know how to do is sell government handouts for votes all while destroying the communities they pretend to be helping. Progressives of both parties have slowly eroded freedom and replaced it with big government dependency.

When was the last time you heard ” Ask not what your country can do for you? ”